The Belgian Lotto in numbers
12 facts from 48 years of Lotto
4,263 draws, from 4 February 1978 to 7 October 2026, under the microscope. Everything comes from the National Lottery's public archives: nothing is simulated, nothing is predicted.
Data as of 7 October 2026.
- Draws since 1978
- 4,263
- Record for a single winner
- €11,183,816on 5 July 2014
- Odds of winning the jackpot
- 1 in 8.1 millionper grid, since 2011
Chapter 1 · Facts 1 to 4
This is what chance looks like.
It has no memory, and it doesn't look the way we imagine.
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Fact 1
0
No combination has come up twice in 4,263 draws.
Yet 282 pairs of draws differed by a single number. With millions of possible combinations, that is exactly what probability predicts.
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Fact 2
53.6%
More than half of all draws contain two consecutive numbers.
A 7-8 looks “too good to come up”. Our sense of chance is too regular: real randomness comes in clusters.
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Fact 3
62%
62% of draws repeat a number from the previous draw.
A number that has just come up is neither “worn out” nor “hot”. The balls have no memory: every draw starts from scratch.
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Fact 4
6 times
Number 17 came up in 6 draws in a row, up to 2 February 2011.
Conversely, number 5 stayed out for 68 draws in a row, up to 22 October 2025. Over thousands of draws, streaks this long are bound to happen: statistically, it was going to happen.
Chapter 2 · Facts 5 to 8
What the dream costs.
Prize amounts have been published since 1995. Here is where the money goes.
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Fact 5
49 cents
For every €1 staked, 49 cents go back to the players.
Since 1995, €16.2 billion has been staked on the Lotto, and €7.9 billion paid out to winners.
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Fact 6
36%
Of the €7.9 billion paid out, €2.87 billion went to the jackpot.
36% of all winnings since 1995, for 5,125 winning grids. All the other winners share the rest.
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Fact 7
≈ €2,698
Playing one grid in every draw since 1995 cost ≈ €2,698.
Played all that time, the grid 1-2-3-4-5-6 would have won back €540, or 20% of its stake.
Replay 1-2-3-4-5-6 → -
Fact 8
30%
Even the perfect grid, picked in hindsight, only wins back 30% of its stake.
The six most drawn numbers since 2011 (3, 16, 19, 38, 43 and 44), played in every draw since 2011. You know the answer in advance, and you still lose.
Replay 3-16-19-38-43-44 →
Chapter 3 · Facts 9 to 12
Everyone plays the same.
The jackpot is shared by everyone holding the right grid. And many hold the same one.
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Fact 9
67 winners
On 5 October 1996, 67 grids matched all six numbers. Each one won €18,785.
The combination: 13-14-15-17-18-19, an almost perfect run. It is the smallest jackpot paid out since 1995.
Replay 13-14-15-17-18-19 → -
Fact 10
Twice
Five consecutive numbers have come up only twice.
On 16 June 2007, 20-21-22-23-24: 22 grids won the jackpot, €45,200 each. On 21 December 2013, 21-22-23-24-25: 7 winners. Runs are popular grids.
Replay 20-21-22-23-24-42 → -
Fact 11
×1.8
Since 2011, when all six numbers fall between 1 and 31, the jackpot has almost twice as many winners.
1 to 31 are the days of the month: many players pick birthdays. Winning with a date more often means sharing.
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Fact 12
4.3 million
On 27 December 1997, 4.3 million entries: the most played draw since 1995.
Twice an ordinary Saturday that year, which drew about 2.2 million. It was the Saturday between Christmas and New Year: 768 million Belgian francs staked, a record the press was still quoting in 2003. In the end, 6 grids shared €6.0 million.
Method and sources
Where these figures come from.
- Source. The National Lottery's public archives: every draw since 4 February 1978, prize amounts since 1995. Data as of 7 October 2026, recalculated with every site update. Official statistics, in French ↗
- Three eras. 6 numbers out of 40 until 1983, out of 42 until 2011, out of 45 since. A 1 in 3,838,380 chance of matching all six in 1978, 1 in 8,145,060 today.
- The most drawn numbers mean nothing. Since 2011 (1,568 draws), each number should have come up about 209 times. Number 16 came up 242 times, number 37 172 times: a χ² test gives 51.3 for 44 degrees of freedom, below the 60.5 threshold. That is the normal spread of pure chance: no number is “hot” or “cold”.
- Entries. The “players” column of the official archives. With €3 to €8 staked per entry, the same player probably counts more than once.
- Fact 11. Jackpot winners per entry, to compare busier and quieter draws: ×1.8 since 2011, ×1.4 from 1995 to 2011.
- Fact 12. The draw's total stake, converted at the fixed rate of 40.3399 Belgian francs to the euro, matches the record of “768 million Belgian francs over Christmas 1997” quoted by the press in 2003. La DH, 4 February 2003, in French ↗
- Price of a grid. 20 Belgian francs, then €0.50 until September 2011, €1 after that, €1.25 from May 2018 and €1.50 since May 2025. Every increase shows in the archives: the stake per entry jumps on the very draw. Costs are rounded, hence the “≈”.
- Independent. Lottery Time Machine has no link with the National Lottery, and sells no predictions and no systems: none exist.
What about your numbers?